Joel Wilkinson (born 29 November 1991) is an Australian sportsman who has played professional

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...

and

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

. He played 26 games as a defender for the

Gold Coast Football Club The Gold Coast Suns is a professional Australian rules football club that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL). The club is based on Queensland's Gold Coast in the suburb of Carrara. The club has been playing in the AFL since th ...

in the

Australian Football League The Australian Football League (AFL) is the only fully professional competition of Australian rules football. Through the AFL Commission, the AFL also serves as the sport's governing body and is responsible for controlling the laws of the gam ...

(AFL), where he was one of the club's underage recruits and played in the club's first season in

2011 File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...

. Known as one of the best pound for pound athletes, he set numerous records at the AFL combine, including the 20-metre sprint and repeat 30-metre sprint test. Switching codes with the aim of playing in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

(NFL), he signed with the

Arizona Cardinals The Arizona Cardinals are a professional American football team based in the Phoenix metropolitan area. The Cardinals compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) West division, and play t ...

in February 2016. Wilkinson is a prominent

anti-racism Anti-racism encompasses a range of ideas and political actions which are meant to counter racial prejudice, systemic racism, and the oppression of specific racial groups. Anti-racism is usually structured around conscious efforts and deliberate a ...

campaigner, alleging that

institutional racism Institutional racism, also known as systemic racism, is a form of racism that is embedded in the laws and regulations of a society or an organization. It manifests as discrimination in areas such as criminal justice, employment, housing, health ...

ended his career in the AFL and lodging a racial discrimination complaint against the league with the

Australian Human Rights Commission The Australian Human Rights Commission is the national human rights institution of Australia, established in 1986 as the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) and renamed in 2008. It is a statutory body funded by, but opera ...

Early life

Born in

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

, Wilkinson is one of three children. He is of Nigerian descent through his father. At the age of four, his family settled on the

Gold Coast Gold Coast may refer to: Places Africa * Gold Coast (region), in West Africa, which was made up of the following colonies, before being established as the independent nation of Ghana: ** Portuguese Gold Coast (Portuguese, 1482–1642) ** Dutch G ...

, and instantly began pursuing an interest in

athletics Athletics may refer to: Sports * Sport of athletics, a collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking ** Track and field, a sub-category of the above sport * Athletics (physical culture), competiti ...

. Although excelling in athletics, Wilkinson also represented the Gold Coast in

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

and

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

. In 2008, he grew tired of the sports he had already tried and began playing

for his school

Palm Beach Currumbin High School Palm Beach Currumbin State High School (PBC High School or PBC) is an independent co-educational public school (government funded), in the Gold Coast suburb of Currumbin, Queensland, Australia. PBC is Queensland's southernmost coastal High sch ...

, for the first time at 16 years of age. Although the school was predominantly known for its

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 112 ...

program, Wilkinson elected to play Australian rules football. He studied Biomedical Science at

Griffith University Griffith University is a public research university in South East Queensland on the east coast of Australia. Formally founded in 1971, Griffith opened its doors in 1975, introducing Australia's first degrees in environmental science and Asian s ...

Junior football

Wilkinson signed up to play for the

Broadbeach Australian Football Club Broadbeach Australian Football Club, also known as the ''Broadbeach Cats'', is an Australian rules football club representing the suburb of Broadbeach on the Gold Coast. The club competes in the Queensland Australian Football League after havi ...

's under 18 team in 2009 and was chosen to represent the Gold Coast Stingrays in state competition later that year. He began playing senior football for Broadbeach in 2010 and in just his fourth game earned a nomination for the AFLQ Rising Star Award. He was also named state captain of the under 18 Queensland Scorpions squad that competed in the 2010 AFL Under 18 National Championships. At the conclusion of the 2010 season, Wilkinson was drafted as a Queensland zone selection by his hometown

Gold Coast Suns The Gold Coast Suns is a professional Australian rules football club that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL). The club is based on Queensland's Gold Coast in the suburb of Carrara. The club has been playing in the AFL since th ...

who were entering the professional

in 2011.

AFL career

Wilkinson made his professional debut for the

in round 14 of the

2011 AFL season The 2011 AFL season was the 115th season of the Australian Football League (AFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Australia, which was known as the Victorian Football League until 1989. The season featured s ...

, against the

Western Bulldogs The Western Bulldogs are a professional Australian rules football team that competes in the Australian Football League (AFL), the sport's premier competition. Founded in 1877 as the Footscray Football Club, and based in West Footscray in the o ...

. He would be racially abused by Bulldogs player

Justin Sherman Justin Sherman (born 26 January 1987) is an Australian rules footballer who played for the Brisbane Lions and Western Bulldogs in the Australian Football League (AFL). He was recruited as the number 45 draft pick in the 2004 AFL draft from Cl ...

. In his second game in the AFL, he kicked his first goal, while playing against

Fremantle Fremantle () () is a port city in Western Australia, located at the mouth of the Swan River in the metropolitan area of Perth, the state capital. Fremantle Harbour serves as the port of Perth. The Western Australian vernacular diminutive for ...

at the

Subiaco Oval Subiaco Oval (; nicknamed Subi) was a sports stadium in Perth, Western Australia, located in the suburb of Subiaco. It was opened in 1908 and closed in 2017 after the completion of the new Perth Stadium in Burswood. Subiaco Oval was the high ...

. While competing against Collingwood at the

MCG The Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), also known locally as "The 'G", is an Australian sports stadium located in Yarra Park, Melbourne, Victoria. Founded and managed by the Melbourne Cricket Club, it is the largest stadium in the Southern Hem ...

in 2012, Wilkinson was racially vilified by a Collingwood member in the stands. Wilkinson set many fitness records while at the Gold Coast Suns. Despite only being 186 cm, 86 kg and 21-years-old at the time, he set a bench press record of 160 kg (352 lbs) for three repetitions in 2013. He also set the 2 km time trial running record in 2013. During Wilkinson's AFL career he traveled to Arizona on three separate occasions from 2011 to 2013 for off-season training and was a standout in the high altitude drills. He was delisted by the Gold Coast Suns at the conclusion of the

2013 AFL season The 2013 AFL season was the 117th season of the Australian Football League (AFL), the highest level senior Australian rules football competition in Australia, which was known as the Victorian Football League until 1989. The season featured eigh ...

and was signed by the semi-professional

Northern Blues The Preston Football Club, which trades and plays as the Northern Bullants, is a long-established Australian rules football club based in Preston that plays in the Victorian Football League (VFL). It plays its home games at the Preston City O ...

for the 2014 VFL season in an attempt to be redrafted into the AFL.

Racism

In May 2018, Wilkinson made a formal complaint against the AFL in the

, with Wilkinson alleging that he was subjected to discrimination, vilification and harassment on both racial, sexual and religious grounds by AFL staff, the Gold Coast Suns, club officials and teammates, as well as opposition players and spectators during his AFL career. In June 2020, Wilkinson revealed that he removed himself from the legal proceedings towards the end of 2019, as he was being pushed into settlement with a non-disclosure agreement; Wilkinson felt it was an unjust process and that he needed to protect the truth. In February 2021, Wilkinson stated that his career ended due to being "racially blackballed from the league", and that the Australian Human Rights Commission complaints process involved "blatant conflict of interest, corruption, and continued racial abuse with no accountability".

Statistics

, - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

, style="text-align:center;", , 38 , , 7 , , 1 , , 0 , , 38 , , 46 , , 84 , , 21 , , 26 , , 0.14 , , – , , 5.43 , , 6.57 , , 12.00 , , 3.00 , , 3.71 , - ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2012 File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gather ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 38 , , 9 , , 0 , , 0 , , 38 , , 38 , , 76 , , 27 , , 23 , , – , , – , , 4.22 , , 4.22 , , 8.44 , , 3.00 , , 2.56 , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" ! scope="row" style="text-align:center" ,

2013 File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fact ...

, style="text-align:center;", , 38 , , 10 , , 0 , , 0 , , 54 , , 62 , , 116 , , 19 , , 23 , , – , , – , , 5.40 , , 6.20 , , 11.60 , , 1.90 , , 2.30 , - , - style="background-color: #EAEAEA" , - class="sortbottom" ! colspan=3, Career ! 26 ! 1 ! 0 ! 130 ! 146 ! 276 ! 67 ! 72 ! 0.04 ! 0.00 ! 5.00 ! 5.62 ! 10.62 ! 2.58 ! 2.77

NFL career

Arizona Cardinals

Wilkinson abruptly announced his retirement from Australian rules football in July 2015, stating his intentions to pursue a career in

. Following his announcement, in August 2015, Wilkinson moved to

Phoenix, Arizona Phoenix ( ; nv, Hoozdo; es, Fénix or , yuf-x-wal, Banyà:nyuwá) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Arizona#List of cities and towns, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona, with 1 ...

in an attempt to secure a tryout with an NFL team. The

allowed Wilkinson to tryout twice for the position of

cornerback A cornerback (CB) is a member of the defensive backfield or secondary in gridiron football. Cornerbacks cover receivers most of the time, but also blitz and defend against such offensive running plays as sweeps and reverses. They create tur ...

in early 2016. Wilkinson signed an official contract with the Cardinals on 16 February 2016. Wilkinson stated after his signing that the cornerback position was very similar to what he played in the AFL.

New York Giants

In May 2017, Wilkinson attended the

New York Giants The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Giants compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East division. ...

mini camp as a defensive back.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Wilkinson, Joel 1991 births Living people Australian rules footballers from Queensland Gold Coast Football Club players Preston Football Club (VFA) players Sportspeople from the Gold Coast, Queensland Australian people of Nigerian descent Australian players of American football American football cornerbacks Arizona Cardinals players Australian rules football players that played in the NFL